Finally had the chance to try out the new Japanese Pringles Sour Cream and Chives Instant Noodles! So was it a hit or miss? Let’s find out.

Where to purchase

As at the date of this post, you can find it at Don Don Donki at Orchard Central in Singapore. You can also find it on several local online grocery shopping sites like RedMart, honestbee, EZbuy, etc. subject to availability. There are probably a lot more places you can buy this online like Amazon but that’s the extent of my research so far.

Packaging

The packaging is very solid and good quality. And like most Japanese instant noodles, comes with a very detailed set of instructions on how to cook your noodles al dente. I have a feeling that the instant noodles were supposed to be eaten dry based on Step No. 4!

There was a tab that when removed revealed a shiny silver ventilation-like structure, but on retrospect, I think it was actually so that the soup can be poured out from the styrofoam bowl.

I’ve never seen anything quite like this so it was definitely really interesting!

Next was the most important aspect – the taste!

I suspect that I didn’t pour enough hot water… but after taking this photo I poured some more so that the noodles reached the next step in the bowl.

Taste Test

So was it nice? And would I recommend it?

The noodles were really too oily and greasy and way too buttery for me. There was a really strong greasy, buttery smell that didn’t really sit with me. To be honest I didn’t finish the noodles because the smell was quite overwhelming.

The soup really tasted and smelled more like Pringles compared to the noodles. You can really taste the same Pringles kind of essence in the soup but not at all in the noodles. But it isn’t really mind-blowing in any way.

In any case, I found it difficult to finish these Pringles Instant Noodles on my own.

I’ld probably choose to eat Pringles AND instant noodles, but this collaboration didn’t really surpass my expectations and was actually worse than expected. On the bright side, at least it didn’t smell too sourish.

For the price, I think these instant noodles were really overpriced and overhyped. I think that way more effort was spent on crafting the packaging and aesthetics of these Pringles Instant Noodles as opposed to the actual taste and flavour of it.

I would only recommend these Pringles Instant Noodles if you really are curious and really must try them yourself.

I think you don’t have to be a Pringles fan to enjoy it. But be warned, I wouldn’t say they are the best, most delicious instant noodles ever made. If you’re craving Pringles, just buy a can of those potato chips instead!

Nestled along Rowell Road (between Little India and Jalan Besar) is Sideways Singapore, a wood-fired dining concept that does both brunch and dinner. I was recently invited by Sideways Singapore to try out their new menu, but ended up learning more about their restaurant and the awesome people behind it.

Sideways Singapore is a recently opened, sister food establishment to The Hangar. It’s currently housed in a refurbished 100 year old shophouse.

Unbelievably, the restaurant is just under 6 months old but it is already full of character. The chairs, tables, wiring, pretty much everything was put together by Singaporean Pav, who co-owns Sideways Singapore with his Italian partner, Giulia.

When we spoke with Pav and Giulia, they both seemed to really love living in Singapore (having lived overseas), and they both hoped to create something special and unique for Singapore.

As for the menu, almost everything is cooked in a beautiful wood-fire oven, which was lovingly made from scratch by Pav.

He shared with us that it took him 3.5 weeks to finish building this oven, and I was really impressed by his ability to pick up these skills and to be able to make his very own oven!

The ambience at Sideways Singapore is very welcoming, almost warm and homely, there’s lots of natural ambient light that filters in in the day time. And I hear that Sideways Singapore is even more magical at night, so I’ll have to come again.

I like the attention to detail everywhere, and the beautiful tiles on the flooring provide a reflection of the 100 year old shophouse’s Singaporean heritage.

Even the outdoor washroom round the back has its own unique charm 🙂

Don’t forget to check out the exposed exterior wall of the shophouse, which is covered in a beautiful, almost 3D-esque street art created by two American graffiti artists back in 2010.

Before I forget, let me tell you about the food!

First, we tried their delicious signature wood-fired sourdough [$4+].

The bread served at Sideways is made fresh daily.

They do sourdough, ciabatta, everything! So if you want to buy a loaf, do give them a call in advance (I’ve listed their telephone number at the end of this post).

The wood-fired sourdough was definitely one of the best sourdoughs I’ve had in Singapore. It’s really unforgettable.

Really airy, crispy, fresh, soft and fluffy in the centre! A must-order at Sideways. The portion was generous/just nice for me, and we had it with an avo pesto dip [$9+] made from feta, pesto, basil, tamarind, olive oil, pepper and mint. Really good, savoury stuff and so easy to spread on the sourdough. I’m craving it just thinking about it. It’s really tasty.

Next, I tried the Sicilian Crostini [$12+] which is spicy nduja spread, creamy burrata with mint served on wood-fired sourdough toast.

This is one of their mains. It’s really hearty, filling and full of flavour. If you’re a big eater, order this. The sides of the sourdough was really gorgeously charred and crusty! Taste-wise, I found that the dishes we tried all had a commonality among one another, I think it lies in the use of mint, basil and pepper that gives the food at Sideways its own original character. We found it hard to label the cuisine at Sideways – it seems to be a melting pot of different influences, that comes together to form its own sort of identity. I wouldn’t say it falls under fusion per se, but it is a mixture of different food cultures.

Next, we tried the oven baked artichoke. On its own, we found it pretty vinegary and tasted quite pickled. I felt like it could pair nicely with a drink, or maybe couscous? Perhaps pita? I’m not sure what people generally eat artichoke with, I usually have it on pizza. Besides artichoke done this style, Sideways also does a fried version, which actually sounds pretty good..

After that, we tried something new on their menu – Stuffed Pita with Veg [$16+]. This is their wood-fired pita filled with eggplant, peppers, pesto, melted mozzarella and sprinkled with parsley. It’s a little like a calzone, and tastes similar to the other items we tried! I think this is worth ordering if you are craving something very homely and easy to eat. I suspect that this stuffed pita with veg would be a hit with children.

Last but not least, we tried the Cauliflower Steak [$12+].

The cauliflower is cooked in the wood-fire oven and has a nice, lightly charred flavour. The cauliflower is topped with a beautiful beetroot tahini and lots of sesame, pepper and parsley. The tahini has a rich and wonderful sesame flavour, and the tiny cubes of beetroot were delicious – very fresh and floral and not at all earthy or muddy tasting. Again, the flavours in the tahini were rich and yummy.

I think the successful dishes which really worked at Sideways were those with a mix of more plain, light flavours combined with more richer, more intense flavours to balance it out. I particularly liked the signature wood-fired sourdough. Highly recommend it, together with the avo pesto dip. Also recommend the new cauliflower steak with beetroot tahini. It’s super good.

Who I think would enjoy Sideways Singapore:

– People who love cafe hopping and finding new restaurants in Singapore;

Woke up this morning craving pasta so the first order of business was a trip to Tipo Singapore, a newly opened, Halal pasta bar in the Bugis/Kampong Glam area.

Tipo was a 10-15 minute walk from Bugis MRT Station. We were greeted by a gorgeous teal and pink coloured shopfront with lots of fresh, homemade pasta in the front window.

Even though we had arrived at 12.25pm, there were plenty of customers seated and eating lunch! The menu was pretty easy to read. There were two pasta options to choose from and various sauces. The lunch set is pretty worth it, you get a bowl of pasta and a homemade iced tea for $9.90.

There’s also a Build Your Own Pasta menu. One of the toppings Tipo have is black caviar! So fancy 🙂

My brother ordered the carbonara al funghi and I had the ragu alla bolognese.

Carbonara al Funghi with Iced Tea [$9.90]

Pasta, alfredo, mushroom and a sous vide egg

The carbonara was very creamy and eggy. I’m not really a carbonara fan, so can’t comment. But my brother polished the plate clean, no complaints.

Ragu Alla Bolognese with Iced Tea [$9.90]

Pasta, raghu, parmesan

Yum. My pasta dish was pretty delicious! I love how the ragu bolognese sauce went so well with the pasta. The beef was very nice, soft and tender. Think it was beef cheek. The pasta itself wasn’t too wet or dry. My brother found the pasta too salty but I thought it was okay. I thought the sauce to pasta ratio was perfect. I think the only improvement would be if the pasta had flavourful herbs like rosemary in to it, to give it more of a depth.

On the whole, it was pretty good pasta but not the most amazing pasta I’ve had. Because it was a little inconvenient to get to, I’ld probably only head to Tipo to eat if I was in the Kampong Glam area.

At the start of the year (2018), I challenged myself to read 15 books and had by the beginning of December completed my goal. It’s surprising because I’ve not been able to finish my reading challenges in previous years – this year I had to finish 1.25 books per month. Sounds a little tough but it is totally doable!

I think I had more time this year in comparison to the past few years where I was adjusting to work life and also studying for my Bar exams. So I had other important things going on in my life that I had to prioritise.

This year marked the end of exam taking probably for the rest of my life. So I could dedicate the extra time to reading books instead of studying the law. There is a certain comfort in the written word, immersing yourself in the mind of another human being, like soaking in a nice warm bath and just momentarily forgetting the troubles of your own life. Kind of like how listening to someone else talk is a real comfort instead of drowning in your own never-ending thoughts.

I decided to jot down a quick one liner reviews of the 15 books I read this year before I forget, ‘cos I’ve already forgotten some of the books which I read in 2018. Fortunately I have it all tracked on my goodreads account so I can refer to it in future. It’s really useful, and I highly recommend using goodreads for reading detailed book reviews as well as curating your reading list.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my mini book review below! (Please feel free to let me know in the comments section what books you’ve read this year and which ones were your favourite!)

1. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

This was quite a difficult and long-winded read, even though the story takes place over three days, the book is a mammoth five hundred pages (!!!) and it follows the protagonist, Ryder, who is a famous pianist who has arrived in a European city for his concert; Ryder finds himself stuck in a weird world where everything goes wrong and throughout the book he is moving through a ghost-like fog where he has no control over what goes on.

2. The Beauty Myth: How Images are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf

I found this book a little too narrowly focused, archaic and academic in style for my personal tastes, but it’s not too bad; it goes deep into how images of women in patriarchal society are used as a weapon against women to create a sexualised idea of how women should behave and look like, and interestingly enough, this feminist author was formerly the political advisor to Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

3. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is a British Japanese writer so he provides an interesting perspective – having traditional Japanese parents while growing up in England – in this book he presents a very Japanese literature style (I think quite different from his usual writing style), the book transports the reader to post-war Japan and zooms in on the life of an elderly Japanese artist and his children’s young family, the book is something like a bildungsroman but from the perspective of an old retired man.

4. The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens

If you enjoy reading about tax havens, The Panama Papers, and white collar crime, you’ll enjoy this quite short but very insightful and interesting non-fiction book; this translated work covers the history of tax havens, how they came about and provides meaningful recommendations on how the world can fight back and stop individuals from hiding behind shell companies and start paying their taxes.

5. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

To be honest I started this classic perhaps last year or the year before, it’s a really really long book (more than 1,000 pages), and it’s the first novel ever written in the history of humankind (and written by a woman too!), this dramatic tome follows the life and death of Genji (the son of an Emperor) and his dalliances, and shows us what court life was like during the Heian period, it’s truly like Japanese theatre in beautiful written form, it’s also pretty well translated.

6. Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Needless to say, all politicians are great at talking, but this book focuses on Hillary’s work as Secretary of State during the Obama administration and the tough calls she had to make, dealing with difficult and precarious situations, people, countries, personally I found that it makes for both an exciting and boring read at times, would be a good read for those with a keen interest in politics and diplomacy.

7. The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn

Possibly my favourite book that I’ve read this year, Jeff Guinn and his team make amazingly detailed biographers and storytellers, and so much research has gone into this work, it’s truly a work of art, I highly recommend this book, it delves really deep into the history of Jim Jones and the Jonestown cult.

8. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

I was extremely motivated to finish this book before the movie, and I’ll say the movie is quite close to the book, like a condensed version, but the book has a very very different type of humour to it, it’s super easy to read, lots of cliffhangers, like chick lit to be honest, and I did enjoy seeing all the Singaporean references like ACS and CHIJ, etc, and on some level could relate in the sense that I knew people who lived lives similar to that of the characters in the book, while reading this I did wonder to myself, whether Kevin Kwan wanted the reader to question whether capitalism is wrong, wrong, wrong, perhaps…

9. The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz

This book really captured my attention, it’s super easy to read and even though it was written in the early 2000s, it still remains super relevant, it’s a self-help book of sorts, it makes you question why we need to make so many choices each day, and how our lives are more stressful and depressing because of all the choices, I found myself agreeing and disagreeing on some aspects, I think at the end of the day it is something like an opinion piece…

10. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

OITNB is also another book turned into a show, to be honest, the book feels more realistic but it is also kind of “pat on the back”, self-congratulatory, written from a very privileged perspective, I think I enjoy the show a lot more, as it develops the stories of different characters, and focuses less on Pipes and her first world problems, this book was surprisingly short and easy to read, it was a little annoying how she would throw in unnecessarily big words from time to time, but to sum it up, I enjoyed the show more.

11. This is What Inequality Looks Like by Teo You Yenn

This book of essays is written in a very Americanised way, like for an American audience to understand the lives of Singapore poor, something of the opposite of Crazy Rich Asians, funny how the CRA movie came out in the same year as this book, but like OITNB, this book is written from the position of someone who is both quite privileged and educated, I found myself nodding most of the way but towards the end, I was kind of disappointed that she did not go into racism in Singapore and instead kind of sat on the fence about it, I guess it’s quite a taboo topic that’s not safe to discuss, especially in written form, nevertheless, this was an enjoyable, eye-opening, introductory book that confronts poverty in Singapore head on, fearlessly; I look forward to reading her future works.

12. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Didn’t have this in my photo above because it’s on loan to a friend, but this is another very tiny book on feminism (I subscribe to the view that feminism is for everyone and benefits everyone in society, female, male, etc), it’s essentially the TED Talk (which has millions of views by the way) in book form, I really enjoyed it, it’s a refreshing read and I highly recommend getting this book for yourself or others as a gift, or watching the original TED Talk, it’s truly enlightening and very light-hearted but also ever so slightly serious in a good, relatable way.

13. Ayiti by Roxane Gay

A short, unpretentious, very blunt and very fearlessly real book, Ayiti is an easy to read but maybe harder to digest collection of short stories that follows the struggles and successes of various Haitian people.

14. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Took me a while to finish this book, but she’s an amazing storyteller, weaving multiple stories into one story with a happy ending, I quite loved it, it was just a little long, sarcastic and repetitive at times, but it isn’t too bad, it is quite funny and real at times, it’s essentially about various people from different parts of Africa moving overseas and their changing, intermingling lives.

15. Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

This book was quite disappointing, very repetitive, had some typos here and there, not really well edited or translated and it was super long at 700 pages or more, I suspect Murakami is past his prime, this isn’t his best work, felt like he was just writing because that’s his job and there’s a certain expectation when you’re famous, at times the book gets really weird, but it’s basically a mystery novel with an unexciting, easily forgettable artist as the male protagonist and some other boring, mysterious characters, if you’ve read Murakami’s earlier works, it’s very similar, just worse and badly edited.

ABOUT A GIRL

The best things in life are simple, really. Rachel loves a good book and some nice hot tea. She takes pictures and writes daily, and hopes that her reviews here on her blog and Instagram page (@missrachelrawr) help readers make an informed decisions on food, beauty, and lifestyle. Readers can rest assured that every post here is written by her and you won't see any posts written by somebody else! For collaborations, feel free to contact Rachel, she's always looking out for the latest skincare products and on the hunt for the newest restaurants and cafes!